Ignoramuses Anonymous

Nowhere but somewhere

Kind of here, kind of there

Somehow I hope, but somehow despair
This state of in-between, pulling my hair
Letting go and just being here

I don´t know, I really just don´t

Hopeless hope, meaningless means
This state of in-between

Where to go next, what to try?
When all just seems to fade away
When the fountains, again, seem to dry

But then again, something is coming
Nothing is wrong

This state of in-between

A Jar

These little scrapes and scratches
the little things to hide

As
Imperfection

They make me
They take me
Only they appear

As
Imperfection

But the space
thought to be contained
Is unaffected
Shining clear with it´s emptiness

The little scrapes and scratches, the things to hide
Are really only our hiding place in the forefront of our Eye

Imperfection
On the surface of the Jar
But within
only space inside

Love

I’ve had glimpses of love, and feelings of love, and ideas about love, and, well, physical love. And all probably quite average at that. But something is happening that began a year ago and is hard for me to understand. My concrete heart was delivered a blow I don’t think it can recover from. My heart seems to be steadily softening and the only way I can explain it is, Love. This is the sort of love that dissolves, and thus, destroys. It’s the same kind of love that must be in the ingredients of lye-based Drano because that’s what it feels like. Love-Drano is dislodging years of accumulated bitterness and anger and hatred. It is painful and intermittently beautiful. Love.

I believe all sorts of things. About love and God, and myself. And I don’t actually *know* very much, either. This makes for a disastrous combination. And yet again, somehow, what I’m speaking about seems to be able to dissolve even that explosive mixture. I can’t say I understand it, much less fully describe it, and I’m probably at least partially wrong about it, if not totally, but again…Love.

God and his work

To be aware is to know God

The creator gives
An we the receiver are inspired

But there is a law
The law of appreciation
For if one is astonished by the clarity and beauty
One must not forget

We are nothing as creation
Only a shadow, non-existent without
Him

To be aware is to create and not to forget
That it is nothing

To be aware is to remain in him and see the world created

I’ve managed to get by all right with…

I’ve managed to get by all right with a chronic depression. But now and then I slip and fall. And in that grim bottom of the pit, the most profound teachings from the most enlightened teachers come to seem so irrelevant. The highest value I could imagine to aim for in life comes to seem so foreign, like a stranger that has nothing to do with me. In those moments everything loses meaning. One singular thing is left, and wanting: something very personal.
What matters to me most concretely.
What is closest.
What is most intimate with me.

What?

How could every moment of my incredibly boring, monotonous, insubstantial life be about anything other than the search for this? Just necessarily, automatically, without any deliberate design on my part. And most of the time, without my knowing it.

Fear

On my walk I came across a lion unbound
it´s fury sent me flying across the winds against a wall

There I was screaming in pain, but you did not care
You just laughed and I was ashamed
I ran home, locked the door
sat waiting for death to hear my call

It never came for I was too afraid
Hope was left outside the safety of my walls
But in here, there is no light at all

And out there, nobody left to call

My name, my name at all

The Quiet Place

Deep within but right here
is a place of quiet
A place of quiet noice
a place, when there is suffering,
there is peace

An everlasting quietude
A place that wont be disturbed
whatever goes away

It is as if something would be asking,
asking me to come home
A warm radiation of quiet welcome
An offering of shelter, a place of warmth
in the midst of rain

The simplest of desires
just waiting to be acknowledged
To bring me home, back to the fireplace

The Lord’s Prayer

Pleas From a Broken Heart

I can’t keep these crumbling walls upright
forever, their punishing weight is crushing
my mind, my soul.
I’m like a man balancing a broomstick
on his nose; the slightest breeze
has me scurrying to retrieve
my shattered pieces of pride. Yet I can’t
help myself, I’d lose this gig in a
heartbeat if I could.

The holding pattern of
wanderers idly wasting their time in this
earthly waiting room is unbearable.
Painfully and delicately spending our last
precious moments trying to sneak
in one more look at our worn-out minds
which seem like old magazines left behind by
a kind soul.

Before my name is called, to relieve me of this
lifetime of waiting, perhaps I’ll step outside
and enjoy the mild autumn breeze. The golden glow
reflecting off the fiery maples beckons me oh so.
But I fear I’ll miss my call, and there,
I longingly watch the swallowtails dance
in the evening twilight, wishing I were
one of them instead.

Meeting Life at the Table

In conversation with my dad this evening he mentioned something an old seminary teacher of his used to talk about regarding scripture study:

There are two ways to read scripture.  One way is to lay it on the table, put it to sleep, and do surgery on it.  The other way is to sit at the table with it and have a conversation.  The first way to read scripture refers to an analytical approach: breaking it apart, examining how it’s built, looking at where the pieces came from and how they fit together.  The second way refers to an ongoing, living dialogue.

The point in this differentiation isn’t to say that one method is better than the other.  To continue the metaphor of looking at scripture like a person, there is much to be learned from looking at how a person is put together and built.  This sort of examination can give an explanation for why they move the way they do, what allows them to make sounds, why their voice sounds like it does.  But it is quite another thing to listen to just what the person may say to you when they are awake.

It occurred to me that it’s much safer in a way to keep this metaphorical messenger asleep to examine him.  It puts the situation on my terms.  But to keep him awake and become involved in conversation with him engages me personally and takes me out of a safe position of control.  I am then no longer an objective bystander, but am subject to the effects of the message with which I am engaged.

It also occurred to me that this metaphor might apply to my life story.  It is my natural preference to examine things analytically, my own life included.  How am I built?  How did my past create the patterns that I see in my mind now?  Who in my past did I learn my habits from?  I still think that there is something to gain from this approach, not in the least being gaining some sense of distance or detachment from my own patterns.  But what about this other approach?  What happens when I allow my life to actively engage me in conversation?  What message is my life speaking to me when I give up a safe position of control and listen attentively?